Private Prison System in USA

Corporate greed has taken over the prison system in America with many states looking to outsource prison operations, responsibilities to private prison systems and operators, similar to letting someone else deal with our problems.

To make it a sweet deal for private prison operators, justice system is put under undue pressure to increase sentencing and incarceration lengths. Most private prisons require their prisons to be full by at least 90% for a period of 20 years. In the last 15 years, private prison industry has increased by 350% with a market value of $70 billion.

Around 10% of total prison population is housed in private facilities as of December, 2010. Lengthy prison terms for minor offences do nothing to make the streets safer, instead, they turn petty thieves into hardened criminals. Nearly 9.6% of U.S. prisoners are serving life sentence and around 11.2% of prisoners are serving terms more than 20 years.

No wonder, prison population has doubled over the past 20 years. There is a need to limit the supply of inmates to private prison operators because more and more studies have revealed how profit-oriented they are and housing criminals is not something to be passed off to private interests.